


Dreaming

by hoywfiction



Category: Open Heart (Visual Novels)
Genre: F/F, M/M, Making Up, Other, slight angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-05-25
Updated: 2020-05-25
Packaged: 2021-03-02 22:54:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24374605
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hoywfiction/pseuds/hoywfiction
Summary: Rafael made a mistake. (Why did he go back to Sora?)
Relationships: Rafael Aveiro/Main Character (Open Heart)
Comments: 3
Kudos: 8





	Dreaming

A gentle touch calls you out of your dreams, a caress running over your hair. You recognize the weight of it immediately.

“You’re here,” you mumble through drowsiness as your eyes blink open. The faint glow of the early morning sun filters through the window and graces him with a soft outline, like a halo. He’s smiling. Oh how you’ve missed that smile, the one reserved for you and for you alone.

“I never went anywhere,” Rafael whispers back fondly as his fingertips brush over your exposed shoulder. He did, though. The Rafael you’ve interacted with over the past handful of months is not the same Rafael that’s now looking down at you in awe as if he’s staring into galaxies.

Still fighting off the beckoning of sleep, you pull yourself up against your headboard. Your words barely keep from slurring together as you utter them. “This isn’t another dream, is it?”

“Another?” You can hear the pang of sadness in his voice. You shake your head before rubbing your eyes with the balls of your hands.

“Never mind,” you say as they fall away, a deep sigh dripping from your lips to follow. Sat on the edge of your mattress, Rafael is fidgeting with his fingers in his lap almost like he’s nervous. You can’t help but think about how he’s never been nervous with you before. Awkward, yes, but not nervous.

As if being hit over the head you belatedly remember Sora. Your throat grows tight and a light sheen of tears glaze your eyes despite your best efforts to hold them at bay. Rafael’s face falls too. “Casey—“

“Why are you here?” You ask. Although your voice isn’t loud it’s firm, demanding even. You deserve answers, you tell yourself. You deserve to know why you were cast aside like you were nothing.

“I don’t deserve it, but I wanted a chance to explain myself. If you’ll let me?” His eyes are deep with guilt. You figure the least you can do is hear him out, or maybe you feel just a little desperate, so you gesture for him to go on. “I started caring about you... too much.”

Despite the circumstances your heart skips a beat. The confession knocks the wind out of you like a punch to the gut. “What?” you manage to squeak out.

“I panicked.” Rafael says the words on a whisper. He’s staring down at the duvet, a tinge of a blush dusting his cheeks. “You deserve to have a good life with a good man.”

You’re gaping at him, unable to look away. “But not you?” you respond quietly. His eyes snap up to meet yours. He moved his hand on instinct, as if to cup your face, but the movement falters at the last moment.

“We both know how I am.” Rafael smiles again but it can’t mask the sadness exuding from him. “I’m a risk.”

You wish you could disagree with him but memories flash through your head. Rafael singed with smoke after pulling Dolores from a roaring office fire, Rafael barely clinging to life after rescuing a little girl from a collapsing tunnel, Rafael practically throwing himself off a bridge to save a teenage boy... He’s right, you realize. He is a risk. “I’m not afraid of risks,” you blurt out.

Rafael looks at you with a wavering grin. “I didn’t think I could let you take this one.”

“But Sora could?” You don’t mean to sound angry but it spills over all the same. Rafael sighs, rolling his shoulders back.

“Sora’s different,” he says.

“How?” You cross your arms over your chest. You almost don’t want him to actually tell you. Are they more attractive than you? Funnier? Kinder? Before you can stop yourself you’re comparing and contrasting yourself with Sora.  _ As if I haven’t been doing that enough already _ , you think.

But then Rafael says something that’s never crossed your mind even once. “They’ve already accepted that I won’t be around forever.”

You blink absently. Your mind whirls as you try to make sense of what he’s just told you. Eventually your eyes go round and you subconsciously find yourself reaching out to touch his arm. “This is all because I don’t want you to get yourself killed?”

Rafael nods his head with a wistful smile. “I’m a time bomb. Everyone says it. When something happens to me I... I don’t want you to be hurt.”

You furrow your eyebrows at him. “I’d  still be hurt, Raf. I can’t just turn off how I feel.”

He doesn’t look like he’s going to defend himself. Instead he keeps nodding, submitting to your frustration. “I guess hoped you’d start resenting me for dating Sora.”

“About that.” You run a hand over your hair with a heavy exhale. “Are you using them or something?”

Rafael looks hurt that you could ask him that. “Of course not. Sora knows I don’t love them the way I—“

He stiffens and clenches his jaw as if biting back his next words. You lean in toward him curiously. “What is it?” you encourage.

“The way I love you,” he says quickly. You feel warmth spread through your chest but he continues before you can say anything. “We broke up. It’s not like it was a real relationship to begin with. They were mostly trying to help me distract myself from you. I’m so sorry.”

You feel a war waging within yourself. Your heart is screaming to forgive him at once and give him everything here, now, as you’ve thought about at night for weeks. Your mind, on the other hand, is absolutely  furious . You wonder how much of it Rafael can see in your eyes. “You fucked up.”

“I know,” he says sincerely. “I’ll do anything to make it up to you.”

Your body comes up with a compromise between your heart and mind; it grabs Rafael by the hair and pulls him into a kiss. His hands reach for you on instinct and he makes a sound of surprise against your lips as you roughly pin his wrists down against the bed beside him. You draw back just enough to speak to him, fingers still tangled in the short strands of chestnut at the nape of his neck. “You have a lot of work to do,” you growl at him.

Rafael’s eyes are wide and clouded with a slew of emotions. Relief, worry, longing, anxiety, desire. “Where do I start?” he asks, practically begs.

You release him and spin away, placing your feet on the floor and throwing the covers off. You can feel Rafael’s eyes tracking you as you saunter to the closet to get dressed. A light smirk pulls at your lips while you reach for a shirt for the day. “Go make me breakfast,” you command. He scrambles up eagerly.

“Right away,” he smiles before hurrying out of your room, door clicking shut behind him. You chuckle to yourself when you hear him down the hallway. “Hey Elijah! Do you have any pancake mix?”

And then, Elijah, even more loudly: “Hey Sienna! Do we have any pancake mix?”

Once you’ve put together an outfit you stare at yourself in your full-body mirror. You rub a crease at the hem of your white coat’s sleeve and your eyes trail from there up to your face. You look tired— you  feel tired, despite just having woken up— and... well....

You wipe away the tears starting to fall down your face before they can stain your clothing. You‘re hopeful that you’re starting to get Rafael back, yet at the same time the heartbreak still lingers. Does loving him mean you have to keep letting him risk his life over and over and over again? Does loving him mean you have to let him go in a way, like Sora has? You don’t know.

“But it’s a start,” you say to your reflection. You stand up straighter. You‘re Dr. Valentine, member of the renown Edenbrook diagnostics team, dammit. You know what the problems here are and you’ll be damned if you don’t find the solution.

“Casey! Food’s ready!” Rafael calls from the kitchen. You meet your own eye and nod your head. Wiping any remnants of water from your lashes you head into the main space of your home to meet up with everyone else. You take the empty seat at the head of the table, trying to ignore how your friends are watching you while Rafael pours you a mug of coffee. You pick it up after he moves away, catching Jackie’s eyes. She doesn’t break contact but she lifts her own mug out to the side as Rafael goes to pass her.

“Refill, servant boy,” she says cooly, basking in the shocked looks she receives. She grins mischievously at you as Rafael, blushing furiously, does what he‘s told. “I’m assuming he’s in trouble?”

“Big time,” you smirk back at her. Rafael looks at you with surprise.

“Really?” he says. Aurora laughs quietly over a strip of bacon.

“Yep.” Still, your expression softens as you take him in. Through all of this shit, through him pulling away and not being here like you’ve needed him to be, you’ve just wanted things to go back to the way they were. They haven’t yet by any means but for the first time in quite a long time there’s the possibility that they could.

“Well are you at least, you know...” Sienna sets a plate of freshly cooked bacon down in the center of the table before interlocking her pointer fingers. You, in turn, lock eyes with Rafael.

“If he’s lucky,” you venture. 

“He’s still alive, isn’t he? I’d say that makes him pretty damn lucky!” Everyone laughs at Jackie’s joke except for you and Rafael. You flash a wry grin for yourself.

“Damn right,” you say into your pancakes. When you look up again Rafael is smiling right back at you with that soft, affectionate smile, the one that tells you that everything is going to be alright. The morning dissolves into conversation and Rafael takes your hand beneath the table when he sits beside you. It’s the way everything should be, finally.


End file.
